Aesop's Fables (Joseph Jacobs)

One day a countryman going to the nest of his Goose found there an egg
all yellow and glittering. When he took it up it was as heavy as lead
and he was going to throw it away, because he thought a trick had been
played upon him. But he took it home on second thoughts, and soon found
to his delight that it was an egg of pure gold. Every morning the same
thing occurred, and he soon became rich by selling his eggs. As he grew
rich he grew greedy; and thinking to get at once all the gold the Goose
could give, he killed it and opened it only to find nothing.

Greed oft o'er reaches itself.

The
Fables of Aesop, by Joseph Jacobs with illustrations by
Richard Heighway (1894). The page images come from Google
Books. The digitized text comes from Project
Gutenberg. You can purchase this inexpensive Dover edition, The
Fables of Aesop by Joseph Jacobs from amazon.com.